We covered 1/2 the garden in wood chips | One Year Later | Did it IMPROVE the Soil?
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2020
- One year ago, we decided to cover half of our vegetable garden in wood chips with the Back to Eden method of gardening. We try to grow as much of our own food as possible but keeping up on the weeding with large gardens is almost impossible. Usually, by mid-summer, we give up and the weeds take over, but this means they can choke out some of the plants. I really wanted to try the wood chip mulch to see how it worked but my husband didn't want to risk all of our gardens in case it didn't turn out. Here's what it looks like after one full year, what we think, the pros, the cons, and what we're doing moving forward.
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Have you considered doing the Back to Eden or wood chips method? If you have, what's your experience been like?
For 20 years I have been using wood chips in the walkways once or twice a year, and compost-no-dig in the garden beds. Less than 1 hour a year weeding a very large garden. I use wood chips and not sawdust. Wood chips can usually be acquired free from arborists or the local municipality (which is where Back-To-Eden got his). If a person is far out in the country, a gas powered wood chipper is a good investment.
Here is the key: It is mycelium fungi living in the soil that break down the wood chips and exchange the nutrients with vegetable plant roots for sugars that the plants manufacture using sunshine. 🙌 Mycelium is the white strands you see when wood "rots". So the wood chips eventually turn into food for the gardener if the soil is left undisturbed. Plants cannot "absorb" nutrients from the soil, they MUST have soil microbes to exchange with. This is why the soil should never be disturbed. The soil ecosystem should be protected.
Charles Dowding has a RUclips channel where he explains the No-Dig gardening method better than anyone. He has done all the experimenting and demonstrates the advantages in his videos. Weed seeds don't "fall from the sky or get dropped by birds"! They stay dormant in the soil and grow whenever the soil is disturbed. No dig - no weeds! Just add a layer of compost on top every year. The first year use cardboard, and after that it's not needed.
This is permaculture. ruclips.net/video/mRkLlj_cniA/видео.html
Melissa K. Norris - Modern Homesteading I use grass clippings and leaves in my garden instead of woodchips because it’s something we already have. I don’t do a compost pile I think it’s more work, I believe in composting in place😉
Don Rad I think it is the best way to garden. Permaculture is working smart!
It's been a complete game-changer for us! We use the same texture of chips/sawdust like you use. Our property is all extremely sandy. We now have rich, black soil loaded with worms. I will never garden any other way again.
To be honest, I thought back to eden was where you put down "6 inches" of compost and then several inches of woodchips on top. To direct seed, you just build a trench by moving the chips off of the compost and then once the seedlings were sprouting up, you moved the woodchips in around them. I'm surprised you got anything to grow in only woodchips.
Hi Melissa - a few tips from someone who’s been chipping for several years... 1) try getting a load or two with coarser chip material to use in your paths or higher traffic areas, orchards, perennial beds, etc - the coarse material holds up for at least a few years and will reduce the area you need to remulch each year. Also consider making the depth of your path mulch deeper - added years between mulching, plus you build up some really scrumptious compost in the paths over time with zero work. 2) mix soil amendments (other than compost or worm cast) into the chips as you spread them (i.e. bone meal, blood meal, rock dust, bio char, etc). The rain and your more vigorous worm population will move them into the underlying soil over time, almost like compost tea. 3) for compost, worm cast, or other similar heavier amendments, I layer that very thinly on top of my chips in the fall, and let it have all winter to work its way down through the chips and into the underlying ground. Be sure you can still see the chips through the “dusting” of compost in order to avoid caking.
I concur, though there is nothing that can stop the worms from eating wood chips under a mango tree except colder weather.. I have no idea what that's like in Australia.. I saw some snow once on an excursion to our only real mountain.. I did have Christmas at my brothers place in Denver that was very North American and stayed inside the whole time we were there.. :)
I have done the same for years as I have walkways through my large flower gardens. I usually get my rough chipped wood from the city/county for free and re-chipped. I lived in the country in the woods. I worked a deal with the power company to let the trucks dup a couple loads at my house when they were trimming to clear power lines. It takes 8 Small pickup truck bed loads of chips to completely do my walks after I have removed the compost. Well worth the effort.
'Caking' or crusting of compost on top of cardboard was something I experienced this year. I wonder if a thicker layer or something other than peaty compost would integrate the soil/carboard/top layer complex.
Worms for thr win!
Love this added information!!!
Just a warning for anyone living in an area with deer ticks - I used this method in my garden about 15 years ago. I discovered that wood chips are an ideal environment for ticks and every time I worked in the garden I was finding them on myself. Unfortunately, I didn't find them all and contracted Lyme disease. I am still suffering the effects of that decision with ongoing Lyme complications (yes, 15 years later).
FUCK i had no idea. I wanted to do this, but the place I'm moving is infested x_x
I'll have to brainstorm lol
You might try looking into ampcoil. It’s a frequency tuning fork that is known to work very well with Lyme disease.
@@dethmaul good luck. There are countless other methods though; wood bark, hemp, leaves.. choices are endless.
If you can add guinea fowl guinea hens to your garden area they will not eat any vegetation but they will eat any kind of a bug as small as a pinhead they eat deer ticks and everything the only problem is you have to fence them in so they don't fly away and they can be very noisy but other than that they're very beneficial to gardens out in East Hampton Long island New York the wealthy people keep them in their big yards to keep the deer tick population down I hope you feel better my friend
@@dethmaul Although we all dislike chemicals, I will spread Sevin granules around my house and yard in the spring to kill and drive off ticks, fleas, and other bugs. If I still had chickens, I would let them dig through the pile of wood chips for a couple days before using the chips in the garden, to get at those bugs.
We mulch our leaves in the fall and put them on the garden. We put mushroom soil on in the spring and rototill it in before planting. My parents have had big crops of string beans in the past.
Thanks for keeping the video under a half-hour, unlike others who ramble on forever. Lots of useful information, and a nice spread of land you have.
Once the garden is done for the season, I pen the chickens in and leave them all Winter. They eat the leftover vegetables and any weeds that come in the Spring. They keep it scratched up and turned over while they also leave lots of fertilizer!
About 30 days before the last frost, I move them back to their yard, then till everything in and cover with the wood chips and grass clippings. This gives the chicken poop time to break down and the soil stays loose and rich!
After our garden is done I get pigs and put them over our garden. Let them till and root up anything they can find while fertilizing. Then before it’s time for the garden to go In they go to butcher and we have our garden space almost ready.
Thanks for sharing 😃❣️🙏🏽
Animals can be a great contribution and we don’t have to exploit or kill/ eat them ❣️😃🙏🏽
I do the same except I use my children instead of chickens
@Tony Berkopes The problem was the tilling. The easiest solution is to skip tilling altogether and just leave the grass clippings, etc., on top, and plant through those layers in the spring. But if you really want to till it in, let it sit on top all winter long first, to let it age, and then till it under in the spring. Then you shouldn't need to add nitrogen.
@@anthony9thompson Children are the best rooters, they can find anything hidden and, or destroy it within minutes of the find. Somehow they seem to multiply when your back is turn.
You don't know how LONG it took to convince my mother to mulch, lol. Her poor garden looked like a cracked desert. Then she tried it...on one teeny little patch...and was shocked that the soil beneath stayed dark and moist. She's a mulcher now!
I hope that she’s now a mulcher happier person. Hmm, that sounded better in my head. 😅
@@peterl.104 She's mulch happier now..... delivery is everything.
@@peterl.104 🤣😂🤣 well, it amused me dude. Wishing you a splendid Tuesday!
5+ years of back to eden and hugekultur, I'm sold for life. It takes a bit of learning but it totally is worth the effort.
I used to work for an arborist. We were always looking for places to dump our mulch for free. If you want free mulch, just contact your local tree care service. If they are like we were, they will be happy to drop mulch off for free. All you would have to do is move it to where you need. We were a small 2-man team and we still had 1-2 truckloads per week that we needed to get rid of.
Be sure to watch out for poison ivy vines and leaves in your arborist mulch. Just sayin'.
Can't understand why she put down cardboard, which blocks air and water from the soil. Whatever she does with chips is undone by the cardboard. BTW, I use arborist chips for gardens and a woodlot we're trying to reclaim from invasives. As scientific studies have shown, there is absolutely no "nitrogen robbing" by the arborist chips -- unless you're talking about the interface of the chips and the top of the soil. By the time you get 1/8th of an inch down, zip, zero, nada. Further, arborist chips are coarse enough to allow rain and air penetration.
Wow I wish that were the case here ... local arborists & tree services will, at best, put me on a list for chips sometime in the next few months at $50 to $275 per load.
A few hours down the road, my mother got several loads for free in a matter of weeks by calling her power company. Sadly, my local power company contracts all their tree work to the same local arborists I already called.
Some places have a thing called Chip Drop where you sign up for random dumps, the local arborists sign up to see a list of who wants it
@@lynnstevens9666 The cardboard creates a barrier that kills the weeds / seeds but also breaks down very quickly. She's not doing it because of nitrogen robbing.
This year I started putting grass clippings on my garden. I haven’t pulled any weeds. I simply cover the weed with grass and it’s gone. My garden is rockin too! It’s producing way more than ever.
Do you go straight on or do you let the clippings dry first? How deep?
I do the same thing. I put them in the garden area straight out of the mower and they dry over time. They work fantastic. Better than wood chips? No. But, they are free and I have a constant supply.
@@shoejohnmaker We put ours on green, straight from the mower bag, they heat up a little in a kind of fermenting phase and the plants are encouraged by the warm soil/roots too. And unlike woodchips you can easily sow seeds and tuck in new plants each year.
cardboard or even newspaper first, then the grass clippings has always worked wonders for us... straight after mowing the lawn. Just don't pile heaps around smaller plants, add over time
@@shoejohnmaker Not too deep. (I don't know. But I do know they form a mat that water cannot penetrate if they are too thick.)
I live in the Gio Grande Valley north of Albuquerque and we have Caliche clay that a pick axe will bounce off of... covered 2 quarter acres with 2 feet of wood chips and waited 3 years, it's broken down to 6"s and with rich black soil with earth worms glore! 1 lot is now fruit trees and the other is our veggie garden! Back to Eden is God's blessing for us!
That's fantastic, good job Daniel!
We're in Upstate South Carolina so when I first saw the Back to Eden system I was impressed but wary. Paul gets a lot less rain and humidity where he is than we do here. So, we tried it in small areas and had very nice potatoes and tomatoes for the roly polies to consume. They used the wood chips as their headquarters, but that growing area did not receive hot sun all day long. The other area did, and I as a lifelong gardener was amazed! Peppers, tomatoes, husk cherries, flowers just thrived in that environment. I'm for the system where I am, but in the right spot. It also helped us, I believe, that I found a source of wood chips that were already half rotted.
A neighbor would buy old unwanted wool rugs. She would cut them up to use on her pathways. If plants required wide spacing, she put the wool carpet between. I know it sounds expensive but I’ve seen old wool rugs 12x16, sell for $100 or less especially if they have holes. The rugs lasted for years. She added compost and top dress beginning and end of season and as she replaced a crop for another. Weeding was minimal. The rugs are 100% wool, she replaced them every 6-12 years based on thickness. She was in her 80s and had been gardening like this for 60 yrs. Though extremely wealthy, she was yankee thrifty with her money, effort and time. That woman had amazing crop yields.
One of the reasons for covering bare soil is to block UV light from hitting the exposed soil. This will normally kill the micro organisms that are a key element in the food chain of healthy soil.
My wife and I have found that plenty of wood chips with the addition of dried, fall leaves draws earth worms in abundance. We've salvaged clay soil with this method, and our garden grows prolific produce; all organic and without pesticides of any kind.
San Diego & clay soil. Covered 1/2 my front lawn with a thick layer of arborist wood chips last summer. Now, when digging to plant shrubs, I'm blown away with the number of earthworms.
@@dianahall8069 Same here, horrible clay alkaline. It's so bad my neighbor's trees' roots don't grow down, but along the surface, which causes all kinds of problems with sidewalks, driveways and what not. I have no trees, and yet, I get tree roots in my sewer line that causes problems every year. No trees within 25' of my sewer. I am using neighbor's leaves, paper grocery bags and rotted forest (coniferous) material, with all our citrus peels, coffee grounds and our old Christmas trees composted directly in. So far, I have done about 20 sq ft in 2 test plots. I am sold. I will check the pH at the end of this summer.
Hi Diana! Where did you get the woodchips? I'm in San Diego also and interested to do the same. Thanks for any info you could share. God bless 🙏💕💖🌱
I’m so glad you talked about the weeding getting away from you. VERY encouraging, thanks!
I have used wood chips (green rough chopped from tree trimming service) on my garden. The key to using them is applying compost on top of the wood chips and not to mix the wood chips with the soil itself. The transformation of the soil is amazing after three years from application. It has become a no till layered application of leaves, mowed grass and Fall application from compost pile. I am definitely adding more nutrients to the soil every year than the vegetables use. I have also gained 2 inches in height on the raised beds within the garden.
I suspect the reason for that may be because fungi are the primary decomposers of wood fibers like lignen and cellulose, so mixing the wood chips probably introduces competing bacteria that produce methane, hindering the oxygen breathing fungi before they can properly populate the wood. Its just a guess really, and im also thinking of the big chips like half inch thick. The tiny ones she in the video was using i think might become stagnant and even act as a barrier of sorts of put down too thick.
@@nunyabisnass1141 Watch the Back To Eden Garden movie it is free on the internet and opened my eyes to a more natural way to garden.
@nunyabisnass1141 that's exactly what I thought, hers almost looks like saw dust which I don't think would be as beneficial as using fresh wood clippings or aged that are a lot bigger and allow better air circulation to the soil underneath, that's what I used this year and it's like walking on a sponge, the only thing I wish I would've done was add a layer of compost or manure, I could definitely tell my plants were lacking something which I figured I could fix just using fish emulsion every week or 2 weeks, but everything was very slow growing this yr, idk hopefully next spring will be better
I live in a drier climate. I put wood chips down last November to break down over the winter. One of the things that I noticed come spring time was the insane amount of earthworms in the soil. Each shovel of dirt when planting the tomatoes revealed about a dozen assorted-sized worms.
I've always wood chipped my gardens. I also do a lot of pot gardening. There are more weeds in the pots than in the chipped areas of my gardens. As for compost, I use chicken wire silos throughout, about 3 feet tall. All vegetable and weed compost goes into those and over time, falls out the bottom as rich soil. That way I don't have to work with the compost, it does the work by itself.
That is a great idea! Thank you
Regarding some comments below about tilling. No reason to till things. The idea is that to amend the soil, you add the material to the top of the wood chips. Rain and snow will cause it to filter down through the chips. Lot's of interviews with Paul that have more info than the video. One of those was where he talked about this. He actually recommends scattering compost, green stuff and other amendments on top of the chips and letting nature filter the nutrients through. It's what he did when he started. If you want to add some fertilizer, do it when you plant. If you use the right chips you only need to add 1 or 2 inches each year to maintain the thickness. If you don't have to add any, then the chips are not breaking down- wrong type of wood. If the chips are too small, you have to replace more than that. If the chips have no green in them when you put them down, you can add grass clippings, leaves or some other green material to them. Paul recommended bloodmeal if you don't have any green to add to the the chips that don't have any.
Last year I did the chop & drop method on the plant stalks and leaves left. They have all winter to decompose, & then they'll get about an inch of wood chips on top of them this year.
If you till, you will turn chips into the dirt, unless you rake them back first. BTE is supposed to be a form of permaculture / no till gardening. You will also do 2 things you don't want to do if you till.
1. Till weed seeds into the soil.
2. Negatively affect the activity of the earthworms in your garden drastically. The activity can be reduced as much as 90% by tilling. The worms should be your tillers.
There are many wonderful small nuggets of information in the sit down interviews with Paul Gautschi. They are worth watching.
I have been dumping my leaves in a dormant area that I once used for a garden. And mowing with a mulcher. Then just letting nature take it's course. I did this for about 8 years. This year I will till the soil and plant a garden. Fingers crossed.
well, I''m glad you and your husband are teaming up to do this. Awesome!
We live in south Texas and our 2 acres has a lot of oak trees, therefore we have a lot of oak leaves every fall. My husband runs over them once with the mower and then puts on the leaf bagger and picks them up. We use these for mulch for the garden and flower beds but I have to say there is a lot of weed seeds that find there way into the garden if I don’t keep the leaves coming.
A layer of plain cardboard under the mulch really helps to keep the seeds that are in the ground from coming up, and a layer of wood chips will help provide an additional, slower-composting layer to help buy you some extra time between leaf mulches. :)
6-12” of oak leaves should do the trick. When I lived in the city I had agreement with the trash collectors in a grave live oak area. I’d get all the bags of leaves by 10:30 if they didn’t have grass clippings in them. I built my yard out of Mrs C’s leaves.
I've been using wood chips in my raised beds for years. I do think it eats the nitrogen as some plants don't do quite as well as I'd like. There's rarely weeds and the soil never fully dries out. I've inoculated the chips with Wine Cap Mushrooms, as well. The mushrooms eat the wood chips, move nutrients around, and provide us with pound and pounds of mushrooms every year. Another bonus: smaller wood chips or wood shavings help deter snails in my beds! I think the smaller shavings impair their movement.
Casey Newton I think the fine chips deter slugs because it sticks to their slimy body and they can’t lay down a slime trail. Out comes the morning sun... et voila... escargots! I learned this by using sifted dried out compost. They can’t crawl on that stuff.
From PacNW where we have amazing rich volcanic soil, artisan well, & rain moving to Ozark Mtns living in the forest on a rock I had to buy soil for raised garden beds & have learned how to make dirt.
Compost (of course), my chips & straw compost from chickens, fill bottom of raised beds w rotten tree branches, & mix cedar mulch from dead trees in the forest. I also put my mulched leaves thru the chipper to break them down finer & put all the small branches they the chipper creating separate piles.
At the end of the season I'll put 4" inches of the moldy mulched leaves followed w moldy wood chips. Come spring the 2 layers will b pretty much broken down & I'll take my porch fork & turn over until it mixed real well w the previous season soil. After planting starter plants &/ or seeds I'll put down fine layer,
You did a heck of a lot of work! Thanks for sharing the results with us.
The longer you do it the less weeds you have to deal with. Next year will be better! My wife and I are creating a food forest with wood chips and are excited about building our awful red clay with good organic matter and fungal communities. Enjoy your new way of gardening! We all look forward to seeing your progress.
It takes a no dig, lasagne garden bed 2-3 years to get to it’s best, they say, but mine have been amazing since year one. Though I acknowledge they are better each year.
I’ve been doing this for 6-7 yrs & I have to tell you, you will NOT be sorry!! Next yr you will pull less weeds & then the third yr, none! That’s right, none! Most Americans want it now & don’t want to stick it out. They will give up if they do too big of a garden! You were very smart in doing half of your garden because it is alot in the beginning. I only put down woodchips in the fall & spring as it’s too hot down south to do in summer. Make sure you get woodchips with the leaves mixed in. You need the organic matter to break down. I put down 3-4 inches 2x’s a yr. Wait until all the mushrooms & mycelium fungi start to show up! Crazy good soil with wonderful minerals that will make your veggies sweeter, tasty & free from many pests. Sounds crazy but true if you stick it out for 3 years. You WILL NOT be disappointed. Don’t listen to the nay sayers (look straight ahead) & go to RUclips & watch all the garden tours that L2Survive did of Paul’s garden. Now I will subscribe to watch you flourish. I’m getting older & my garden is getting better with less work! It will only get better & easier. If you dream of going out to your garden & planting only & not pulling weeds & your soil getting richer & richer every year, then stick with it! You will not be disappointed! Happy BTE gardening! God is Good! (I would not use sawdust, it has no organic matter (leaves) in it). Also do NOT till it in!
ShinRaPresident ...I call pulling a 1-2 handfuls of weeds none, compared to what normally would have to be pulled! Call it what you may! If you stay on top of it & continually pull weeds each year & make sure there is 3-4 inches (ALWAYS) of woodchips on top you will have HARDLY ANY weeds. Better? Anecdotal evidence it is! Yes, each garden is different. Persistence wins!!
cookinmom ~ What type of wood chips would you recommend? Very interested in doing this. Our garden is 64 ft x 64 ft.
Vote4Pedro211 ...I use the woodchips from when the electric company trims the trees around power lines by my house every yr. If I see them, I will give them my name & # so that if in the area they will call & dump it near my garden but in the shade. Some areas you need to call your electric company & be placed on their list & they will dump if in your area. If they’re not in the area, I will go to the dump & they will freely dump some in my truck. Thirdly, I have gone to my Extension center & have gotten it for free as well! Even tree companies use a chipper, if so, call & ask for chips (with leaves). Make sure it is the tree branches as well as the leaves. You need the green leaves (organic matter) mixed in with the branches so that it will break down & feed your soil & keep it moist (compost tea). I have let the woodchips sit in a pile for a year or 2 & when I go to spread it, it is full of worms! I would get one pitchfork full to put on the garden & I would have 4-5 worms in one scoop! Amazing!
If you do decide to do it, do quarter of your garden to try & see if you can keep up with it. I would add some compost down, plant your 1/4 fall garden & then top with woodchips. Pull weeds first yr & continue to add chips where areas are bare. Next yr do/add another 1/4 of garden. The object is to cover the earth. It will take a while but easily done if you stay with it! If more than 1person helping gardening, then you could probably do 1/4 very easily. Never TILL woodchips into soil & I add decomposed chicken nitrogen (manure) on top of chips & far from around plants.
Happy Woodchip Gardening!
@@msmarygardner Without wood chips you would need to turn the soil over to loosen it. So what happens when you add wood chips ...do you still turn the soil over with the wood chips in it or is there no turning at all ? If no turning doesn't the soil become hardened and no water can seep through ?
Blu ~ No turning at all. If you turn it in, it will kill/rob your soil of nitrogen & you wouldn’t be able to grow anything for a yr or 2. Actually, the soil underneath after a while is soft & moist. When it rains, the water going into the woodchips creates compost tea & will feed your soil. Just keep chips on top & add any other organic matter that you can get your hands on. The first yr or two, you will have to add nitrogen to plants until chips break down. I don’t have chickens so I take my kitchen scraps, move the chips back, dump them & cover it back up. Within 3-4 days the scraps are gone as the worms love it!
I have used rice haybales in my garden to grow directly in and I use it for my walkways. Adding the hay on the walkways is great, as it holds the weeds a bay and keeps it from getting muddy when watering. Then at the end of the season it just breaks down into the soil. Win. Thank you for your videos. I have learned a lot from you.
It's gardening time in NTexas. I'll get a bale or two and try that.
I use wood chip around my perennials, defo worth it as it helps with moisture retention for them in the hot days and it helps protect from frost in the cold weather , weed suppression for them so less competition and less weeding for me, and the best part for me as the wood chips breakdown they feed nutrients into the soil for the perennials, so they assist me with some some gardening chores,
Good for you for going just a section to see f it worked! Glad your experiment worked.
I enjoyed watching your experiment Melissa. Been gardening in NE France for 45 years - no woodchips easily available here, but plenty of leaves in fall. I keep the soil covered at all times and have very little weeding to do plus it cuts down on the watering in these hot, dry times (>90° for a month, very little rain). I'm very vigilant about not letting weeds go to seed - that helps cut down on the weeding too. Good gardening!
Been doing it for years. Works even better if you put a layer of grass clippings on top of the wood chips.
Don't use grass clippings from a lawn that has had weed killer. It will ruin your garden for years. Ask how i know.
@@billh1471 i use grass clippings from my own yard which has no chemicals applied. it is nitrogen rich and if you have a struggling plant that is stubborn to grow just use grass clippings around it and within weeks it will be kicking in that growth spurt.
i have also left clippings in the wheelbarrow for awhile and let it get rain soaked. allow it to stay wet for a few days and pour off the water into a container. that is some cheap nitrogen liquid you have there but use it sparingly, preferably diluted.
i also use urine (which is nitrogen rich also) on my seedlings diluted 1 part to 3 parts water for those runts that are not growing well. within a short time they catch up to the rest of the plants. i will spray the soil a few times a week and sometimes even the leaves. works great.
@@billh1471 lol, why did you do that?
i contacted a tree service/they came with a truck full of wood chips bigger size, delivered free we put about 4 inches after amending the soil,now third season added a bit more chips,way less watering and weeding, i also noticed i few inches down the soil is very moist and cool even on a super hot sunny day only down side i see is that heirloom seeds don't reseed on the next season you just have to gather some for next season:)
Only my 5th random video created by you and I'm already in love! I'm so excited my husband splurged on wood chipper last year for his buisness! We have 10 acres of trees 😝😉
Hey, you. I've used your technique for drying (moringa leaves) in a paper bag. I love my new dried superfood.
love the delivery, no ums or erms just information in a clear and precise way
Consider adding mushroom spores to the mix. You can add a crop and enrich your soil at the same time.
Syntropics.. Ernst Gotch 🍀
This is amazing. I just got a brand new 20 × 10 × 17 high tunnel and was trying to figure out how i was going to make the beds ... thanks for the tips 😀
Paul would be glad to hear this😊🌱
I love the wood chips! Many years! I add more wood chips every year when the garden is done I don’t even need a digger, I could go out with a pair of garden gloves and sow.
Wet the cardboard before the wood chips
A lot of this depends upon your region. I live in Georgia (7B) and when I first moved in 3.5 years ago, the yard was nothing but weeds (including english ivy and poison oak) and rock solid red clay. Some of the trees had to come down, so rather than have the tree guys haul the chips, I asked to retain them. I spread them around the perimeter of the yard. I have raised beds, so filling them with lasagna-style layers, including purchased compost -- didn't use the chips there. Year 2, the chips were seasoning nicely and I discovered that not only were they turning into lush dark soil, but the moisture retention (in what could be long periods between rain here) was the real eye-opening. Needless to say, buying mulch from the store is not the same (and more expensive). Store bought stuff is largely sterile, processed and only minorly effective for breaking up clay soils in the manner I've experienced with fresh wood chips. Most tree cutters are more than happy to bring their chips to you for free, just to get rid of them (especially if they are working in the neighborhood and their truck is filling up fast ... it saves them a trip to a landfill or recycle center). Fast forward to today, I get the chips and include them into my compost pile and let this all season for at least a year -- which means I don't have the fear of nitrogen depletion. And that compost mixture keeps the weeds at bay in my raised beds. I continue to mulch large areas of the property (outside the raised beds) with bark chips (the only issue is I'm now 67 and hauling loads of bark chips around my 1-acre lot with a wheelbarrow doesn't get easier). As with any mulch, it is suprising how fast it breaks down, but if you are a soil enthusiast, it breaks down in a very good way. Can't say enough about how good it is for Georgia (half my neighborhood now has a load of chips in the drive at least once or twice a year). All that said, I lived in the Pacific Northwest many years ago, and my goodness the soil was so much better there. I was able to keep the weeds at bay with straw. I will say that the only challenge I have with my winter garden beds (without wood chips) is increasing chances of slugs. Slugs don't appear to be as prevalent in areas with bark chips.
@@Elite244 You read in one place that they attract ticks - I read that too but didn't see her reasoning was conclusive. I get ticks on me just sitting in my chair.
Wood chips, lawn clippings work great. After we till and plant seedlings we cover the entire garden with last falls leaves up to 6 inches. Really holds moisture and adds organic matter
I put 1 foot of wood chips in my backyard 4 years ago on soil that was rock hard.... now my soil is rich and soft... plants do well because it holds in moisture and keeps the temperature regulated.., I do put nitrogen on occasionally...all has decomposed except the top few inches.
I’m glad I did it...but of course there was a waiting of a few years to use it but I wasn’t in a rush.... oh and basically no weeds
😃
When you say nitrogen, what exactly do you mean?
@@alanthompson4912 No idea what Alan use but what I did the first year when the wood chips were fresh was parted back the chips to put the seeds, or plants in, I added blood meal with the seeds or plants, and then covered them back up. This put the nitrogen where it was needed. Also with each rain the compost tea came down to the roots too. Then worms came. Benefits just keeps compounding. Every year since then, when I clean out the sheep barn (wood shavings with sheep manure) I just add it to the top. Results are amazing.
@@suffolkshepherd good ideas but maybe a baaaaad smell, sheep poop joke
@@alanthompson4912 lol it does smell as bad as that joke. Kidding. Sheep manure is cold manure. It really dont have a loud smell and can be directly without composting. But you could always stick to blood meal:)
Wow... I don't feel this way very often, but kinda jealous of how GOOD and HEALTHY your garden looks!
When we were dairy farming I used to use the wood shavings we used as bedding in the calf rearing sheds in the garden. It was a great mulch for the garden, it was easy to spread, looked great and really enriched the soil as it broke down. Plants really thrived.
Oh, that is good for the babies.
God, I miss my cows
I found that putting grass clippings on top of the wood chips really cuts down on weeds and helps wood chips break down.
grass clipping usually contain seeds. I avoid putting them on top. rather I put them under the cardboard layer.
The bulk of the decomposition/feeding is happening right at the interface of topsoil and mulch. So you want the nitrogen right there. The sun and air also are burning off nitrogen that is exposed to the elements, gazing off as nitrous oxide.
When you said dandelions grew my brain straight away went yum! Nice dandelions grown in that soil must be delicious! It's one of my favorite bitter greens.
I have a yard full of them. If you are near Atlanta, you can have all of them.
@@philwood9760 so long as you don't use chemical pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers on your yard, I'd take you up on that with pleasure! If I was walking by I'd grab some young leaves and eat them for a walking by snack:)
Our county has free wood chip mulch you can pick up starting April of every year. I have 2 ft raised beds. On my 5th year of using the mulch. 3 inches of wood chips turns into about 1/2 inch of black soil. One extra point. If you go to put them on the garden, add some green stuff to them if you don't have chickens or some kind of manure to mix in with it. This will be our first year doing back yard chickens. There will be 4 inches of mulch in the run and in the coop. That will make some amazing compost this fall or next spring. And BTW, most of the mulch here in Colorado is pine. Works perfectly fine if you let it sit over the winter and mulch the garden with it the next spring.
I use the Back to Eden method on the beds. Only have to water once every 4 or so days and our humidity is very low. July to August is mostly 90 degree temps with little rainfall. Friends cannot believe how big our plants get. Peppers that are supposed to grow 2 ft tall hit 3- 4 ft. I get 10 lbs of San Marzano tomatoes per plant that I limit to about 7 ft of height. And other plants have grown hug with nice production. Weeding is soooooo easy too.
We have loved our back to eden experience the past 10 years. no way we would go back. i recommend a coarser, darker chip from the trucks that cut around the power lines to include the green leafy matter. we do about 6" on the garden at a time.
And you need to get the trucks to deliver it for free just like the BtE guy does.
Are you saying the thickness of your chips is 6 inches? Wow! That is much more than I have attempted or assumed was fitting.
Do you advocate that much based on benefits, or because you have ready access to the chips, and it can't hurt?
@Gregory Parrott 4” or more will retain the soil moisture and temperature moderation in central Texas. Less doesn’t do anything other than cosmetic effect.
@@gregparrott I've been hearing and reading a lot of folks use 6 inches.
@@hal7ter Thanks. This is MUCH MORE than I had assumed was needed.
I'm so glad to see this worked so well. This year I tried mulching with straw and hated it! It was messy, the birds dug through it for bugs and spread it everywhere, it had seeds so actually created more weeds, and made my seedlings really leggy trying to grow through it. It's back to wood chips for me!! Thanks for the reassurances!
that was hay you used
@lonestranger828 I mulched my garden beds with baled straw from my local farm supply, and it was full of seeds.😢
From my research, we are working on doing a no dig garden for spring next year. We started by marking out a section of the yard with fencing (we have dogs that like to dig!), then we put black plastic down for about 2 weeks. Then, once the grass and things have died back (we had no garden before), the plastic will come up and we'll put the cardboard down. We will lay out our beds and make them with about 12" of mushroom compost. We will use wood chips ONLY for the walkways around the beds. The cardboard, compost and wood chips are what Charles Dowling does for his no dig beds.
I intend to plant some alfalfa and clover as cover crops to over winter and improve the compost/prevent erosion. In the spring, we'll lay out the plastic again until the cover crops die back, then we'll transplant our started plants into the beds.
We've never tried to have a garden, so we'll see how things turn out!
Sounds like a great plan! Best of luck!
Stay away from plastic. Nano particles break down and go into the soil and are absorbed by the plants you are growing. Use natural materials.
@@NiciRichter1 Ty. :)
I use Charles Dowding's method (albeit with black plastic through spring most years since grass always persists coming) to great success. But I think you're mistaken with the 12'' compost layer. To my knowledge for starters he recommends either:
a) 2-3 cm (=1'') compost on top of cardboard and then 1'' every year to maintain the ground covered OR
b) no cardboard and a thicker layer of compost to prevents perennial weeds from coming through, but that would be 12-15 cm = 5-6 ''.
I bought an electric wood chipper and chip my own. I used to burn everything. The plants do really well in a cardboard wood chip garden. No complaints. There are tons of earthworms everywhere where there used to just be ants. Weeding is no big deal. The soil stays moist even in the hot Florida sun.
@@erins.bailey4852 At first I bought the Sun Joe $99 one. Don't waste your money. Terrible blade design. The blade design is different on the Sun Joe I bought this time. It is rugged. Can pull an entire small tree through. The travel wheels seem to always fall off, but the chipper is great. Had it over a year. Use it everyday. For hours. If you shop around you may be able find it for less. I think I paid $135 for it.
www.walmart.com/ip/Sun-Joe-CJ603E-Cutting-Diameter-Electric-Silent-Wood-Chipper-Shredder-15-Amp-1-7-Inch/659146191
I've used cardboard with straw, before, and had good luck with not having to weed or water as much. At the beginning of the season, I rake up the old cardboard and straw and compost it, replacing it with fresh material. The cardboard came from a local recycling center. The straw I got for free from the local TSC. I offered to clean up what was on the ground around the straw stack near the parking lot. The manager was happy to let me have it, saving him from having to pay someone to do it.
Leaves work pretty good too. If you dont have enough just go into a wooded area and rake them up. Or ask neighbors if you can take theirs.
Just a heads up, most cardboard ink now a days are made with a vegetable base for easier composting. Not all but quite a lot of it!
I have 4 simi trailor loads of wood chips from tree trimmers that are two years old im putting it on my garden for the second time in 3 years best free gift ive ever got.
Hi, Melissa i have been gardening for 30 yrs. ago. And i hope then to know what i know now about mulching the garden plot. All those back breaking from weeding to watering, but now hell yes it’s a whole lot better. Last year i did decided to mulch with the help of my boys for i planted lots of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and etc. for freezing. I did a lot better this year my veggies are healthier and i froze more than those past years with no back breaking chores. Thank you for sharing this good technic👍 and i hope to be a big help for our fellow gardener(specially women) and yes a special thanks for all those who have knowledge about permaculture, no dig gardening they are a part of my know how to’s. 🙏 Thanks, I am knew to your channel, but looking forward to you next video.
That's what we call sawdust out here. Like many here, I recommend the use of the large wood chips. I apply them only once every 3 years. I like them so much, I use them in my commercial orchard. They decompose faster and create less of a nitrogen issue. I also foliar feed and side dress, so this works exceptionally well. Thanks for sharing. Great video!
Same here. I watched this video trying to find woodchips and all I see is sawdust 😂
grass clippings are fantastic too if you are not using a lot of products on the lawn. Great around the annuals/seedlings after they come up.
Sincerely appreciate that Melissa! Food for thought!!
Great video and information, thanks!
I discovered and have been using the fallen leaves from my trees from each fall / winter season for the same purpose in my garden space.
I have realized many of the same results too, less watering, holds moisture, repels weeds from growing, and then also I mulch it all back into the soil in each spring tilling before re-planting.
Did not like chips in my veggie garden.
Started mulching with lawn mower clippings. Every week when I now everything I can take up goes on my garden no weeds, no watering!
Great veggies.
The temperature of the soil in full sun is drastically reduced with the covering. That too helps to keep moisture. Without covering, my plants were basically cooking in the sun, no matter how much water I added, it dried always instantly. Now with covering, even the heavy rain can not remove the soil. We have to adapt to long periods of drought with devastating rains sometimes. Covering is a step to protect from both. I am not threatened by "the late freeze of death" (march april freeze killing fruits) but the coverings might also help with freezing as well. I'm only one year in, layer not thick enough to see benefit in the weeding, but I do a huge area, I have not yet a veg garden as clean as yours. I just want to avoid a gardened forest to drift into aridity and ending like a desert.
Here in the South (don't know about other areas) people use pine bark mulch to landscape their suburban yards. It takes several years, but if you dig into a garden bed of a home that has mulched every spring for the last decade, you will find several inches of gorgeous black soil beneath the most recent application of mulch. So yeah, wood mulching works even if all you use it for is to suppress weeds and prettify your flower beds, but it is on a time scale that most gardeners don't have the patience for. I prefer to mulch with leaves or pine straw. They are easier to acquire, work with, and break down faster.
Thank you, Melissa!
Wow. I haven't been able to watch one of your videos in quite some time. This is a great way to revisit the topics. Also, my wife said that she's enjoying all of your material so far. While we do have some limits on our time at the moment we are confident things will change so that we're able to spend more time on what matters...............growing our own food, again. :-)
I've used the back to Eden method for a number of years and it works perfectly. Be sure to add compost each fall to winter and then add fresh woodchips in the spring. Be sure to include leaves in your wood chips which will also add nitrogen.
Melissa is AWESOME ! Bless Melissa ! Good job Miss Melissa ! Go Girl !
Oh how I hate weeding!!! I keep hearing about using woodchips to help with weeds. We will definitely try it this year! Thanks for sharing 😁
Stopped having lawns thirty five years ago. Coarse barkchip looks great and feeds the soil beautifully. It improves or super sandy soil hugely and saves huge amount of needless time wasting and chemical damage
I hate the way wood chip mulch fades to a horrible sickly grey it turns. Talking abt a small front yd only.
@@sue2019 Coarse bark chip is better and definitely improves soil
Great job. I wonder why you have so much path space? You could be growing your onions for example 2 to 4 rows wide. If you ae not tilling between each row with a tractor you can grow way more food in that space. I interplant lettuce with my onions and get a big yield with both crops and it retains more moisture as well. I do love the way chip decompose into soil, retain moisture and reduce weeds. I agree that heavier chips in the paths last much longer.
Thank you melissa thats wonderful
Very informative. Thank you! 💕☺️
I'm not an experienced gardener nor will I ever grow as much as you but I appreciate your time and information. 👍
I prefer to add a lot of wood chips in our chook run, this turns into rich, nutrient & worm filled compost which goes onto our garden beds. We use wood chips also for the paths between the beds which stops dirt getting onto our veggies & comfortable to walk on
Your should also try fungul dominated mulch its just shreded dry leaves, you wet it an let it sit for a year it should look like soil by then.
I have used wood chips for years. All though I would till them in. Every other year I would put ships and manure. This method really builds the soil. It keeps the soil loose. (I'm from Minnesota)
Peace in the marriage, peace in the garden......sounds like an old hymn.
Gardening is full.of analogies.
I tried cardboard & woodchips in part of my garden this summer. It was the easiest garden that I've had. It was amazing at reducing the weeds and preventing the soil from drying out. Fortunately, I live not too far from a tree removal company that literally has a mountain of free woodchips that I can pick up. My chips are much bigger than yours so they won't break down as quick but I'm okay with that since I amended the soil when I planted in the fall.
Beautiful to watch and beautiful results
I was going to try half and half also this year! Thanks for this, I’ll just woodchip layer the entire garden! Thanks for saving me an entire season!!
Stick with your half and half plan. You might not get the same results she did. Every garden is different and every load of chips is different.
Hi! What i do is put an unusually deep layer of compost down every year, which feeds the plants and soil, retains the moisture and suppresses the weeds.
This spring I decided to put cardboard down(thank you amazon) First I put chicken manure, then cardboard and rotted hay. I had pretty good results but I think it would be better to put that down in fall instead of spring. The reason it works is that it keeps the soil moist and cool which the worms totally love. They eat the cardboard and then work on the hay or wood chips, breaking them down into nutrients while improving the soil. The hay didn't work to well for me because it was almost impossible to break it up since it was so rotted. However I planted an apple tree in a field I own that's never been plowed or worked before and put just cardboard down with a little heavy clay on top. The next week I checked under the cardboard and the soil was filled with worms and moist. I never watered it once this summer and it's growing like crazy. We've had a really dry summer too. I'm convinced that you should never leave any bare soil uncovered with something...anything. In the woods the soil is always covered and it's rarely bothered by drought and the soil is always perfect.
I'll be doing the same this fall. Have you tried cover crops? I'm about to start.
Actually, if you have an already established garden, you don’t need to put down cardboard! Less work!
@@jessr1766 cover crops?
I live out in the country in East TN. You'd think that wood chips would be easy to get around here with all the wooded areas etc. I signed up for "chip drop" almost 6 months ago and still nothing. But I spotted some utility tree guys that cut around the power lines for the power company parked in the local gas station lot down the road and I went when they get off work to park their trucks for the night. The gas station attendant told me that they normally get off around 4pm. So I stopped by and most of the crew was there, and I talked to the supervisor and asked him if I could have some wood chips. He said that He could bring me as much as I wanted. I'm pretty hopeful right now. We have heavy clay soil here and I believe this is probably my best shot of getting my soil to be garden friendly. The soil is pretty fertile around here for hay and trees once the roots get through the clay layer and get a foothold. I should have planned this years ago. The best wood chips are aborist chips because they contain the leaves and twigs. Straight sawdust isn't very good because it takes forever to break down. If your gonna use sawdust it needs to be mixed in with compost or manure to introduce the mold and and bacteria for breakdown to speed it up.
I tryed this, I felt it work very well.
I never use wood chips. I never use a rototiller and I never weed. Melissa's garden requires much space and distancing of plants. Of course you will get lots of weeds. I can understand why she wants to lay down cardboard and wood chips. I build raised beds, framed in wood...2 x 10s. Then I re-dig the clay soil (Oregon)...french intensive which loosens up the root zone and puts air back in. Then I pile on compost. I get horse manure mixed with straw by cleaning out horse barns. I fill the beds with this. I build the beds once, usually in January or February. I never have to touch them again. I can monitor soil levels and top off with compost if I need to. After planting I cover with a thick layer of straw. I believe if the root zone is deep you can more closely interplant. In effect you self mulch with close interplanting. I never have to weed. After the harvest in late fall I pile raked leaves on deep...one to two feet. It looks like they would never compost down, but they do. Why rake leaves, put them in plastic bags and have them hauled away? Over the winter they sheet compost. The soil is always black, excellent deep tilth and bursting with worms. The plants are robust and highly productive. I raise potatoes separately in plastic garbage cans filled with compost. Works great. And no weeding. The only vegetables I raise in a modified traditional garden as pictured by Melissa is corn. I still build up the soil but I don't do close interplanting in wood framed beds.They are tall and self mulch as well, so I never have to weed them.
almost the same method in South of New Zealand except I plant potatoes year round in same beds with extra straw to protect from frost plus plack plastic till warmer temps in Spring
We’re coming at this from the other spectrum. We started gardening 10 years ago using the wood chip method, and this year was our first year NOT using wood chips. I cannot tell you how much I hated gardening this year! The weeds are unbearable! I really appreciated your analysis. I was really interested in seeing your take doing it your first year, since you’ve done it without in the past. I think it makes gardening so much better for all the reasons you described. We had plants dying of overwatering in some areas and underwatering in others this year. With the wood chips, it keeps in enough moisture and somehow not too much. I love that.
The only problem is that you need to find a free source of wood chips...otherwise it costs a fortune to do this process every year.
norman's garden just call tree trimmers companies in your area. They will drop it off for free usually if when they do a tree that is close to you
@@jasons5992...that's exactly what I do. Have about 10 yards sitting in my driveway right now. I use it on all my flower beds. I have a small plant business and I use the chips to line the bottom of all of my flower pots, then I use it to fill in the top inch or so. Great way to retain moisture and keep the weeding down until I sell the plants.
@...just for grins I may try wood chips on one of my raised beds. My only concern is that the chips you get from tree companies are much larger than what is shown in this video so they would take much longer to break down and I'm not sure how that will work in a "normal" garden setting. That's why I really like the leaves. And instead of cardboard I use the old yard waste bag and then add the leaves on top.
norman's garden our county has an area with free wood chips as much as you want so does the next county over.
My mother used to put down newspaper and then grass clippings on top and that worked very well. But back in the 50s, 60s, and 70,s everyone got a newspaper so there was plenty to use for gardens and the bottom of bird gages.
Thank you for your video. I have covered my old veggie plot with cardboard, and my grass cuttings will go on top of it.
I just subscribed. I have really been enjoying your gardening videos.
Do not worry about the wood chips absorbing the nitrogen. Yes, they will soak up nitrogen. BUT ... As they decompose they will release the nitrogen back into the soil. What is nice about it, it is a nice slow release of nitrogen.
Yes! The mycelium will go to town on the wood chips. They will break down in no time. They'll then give all the nutrients back to the plants through the soil. Symbiosis.
They don't soak it up, they lock it up. This prevents nitrogen's use by plants while the wood chips break down. However, this is only the case when the chips are worked into your soil, not when the chips sit on top of your soil.
@@ramtharthegreat Not according to the Aig researcher at UGA. The nitrogen will re-release into the soil as the wood chips break down. The idea that wood chips absorb the nitrogen, while they do absorb a minute amount, is now labeled an "urban myth".
@@Yooperbuzz1 LOL! And old gardners will look at you like you got a third eye ;) Aig researchers??? You mean the current set of lunatics camped out at the colleges these days. Now back when we actually had "Land Grant" colleges in every state, and a super set of new and better plants and seeds were developed we had Aig Researchers. Today they are very similar to city folk. Don't work the soil, seal it up so it won't grow crap! City folk do the same, concrete or pave it over to seal in the nutrients LOL!
@@ramtharthegreat It is the initial bacteria breaking down the wood chips that temporarily tie up the N. Later stages of the cycle re-release the N, even when tilled into the soil. In fact it does NOT tend to happen on the very top surface that is exposed to the elements.
I really appreciate learning from your experience and effort ,thank you mam !
Thanks so much for posting all this.
That was a lot of work.
I just bought a wood chipper ot get rid of all the branches and broadaxe shavings I've made so this really helps.
It takes at least two years for wood chips to turn into soil. It will be great when it happens. Be patient you will get great soil. Just give it time.
You may prefer to just leave it in a pile somewhere out of the way.
Then in two years you can dig into the pile and spread the good soil where you want it.
I just spread them as they work themselves for mulching. Good water saving method when you don't have much rain.
I have a woodchip pile that's like 5 years old of fully rotted woodchips. Completely broken down and then some. Is it okay to mix this into soil? I cant find anywhere online that says anything about mixing "fully composted" woodchips.
@@tdestroyer4780 You can spread them over the soil about two or three inches and let nature do the rest our till them in. It's up too you.
Understand that there are lots of minerals in this mulch but not a lot of NPK Look at the chips as a medium that holds water and makes space for soil building enzymes to grow.
You are going to have to add fertilizers either natural like fish emulsion or man-made. It's up to you. The plants don't care as long as you don't over apply the fertilizers.
Living Traditions Homestead here in RUclips has some great videos about using woven weed fabric. If I was able to plant large spaces I would definitely go that route.
Then they shit out the seeds and grow weeds....
Love your presentation, thanks.
I did this last year, spring 2020..put up a fenced in area of 16 x 16..didn't remove grass...out down soil, cardboard, more soil, manure, a good 2 inches of woodchips...this spring 2021, I have a beautiful garden and I am awful at gardening. It does work!
I've been using wood chips for years. The main thing about wood chips is using live trees and branches with the cambium layer. Those are the best wood chips, you need that balance of carbon and nitrogen. It's kind of a pain using it in a vegetable garden but, with perennials and fruit trees it's the best way to go.
@@danb1285 sounds like you and I have a similar background in education. Very well said, I agree with you totally. :)
I live in Florida where there is an abundance of Pine and fewer hardwoods. Does the type of wood chips matter?
I put down two to three layers of cardboard since it lets me skip a year when replacing the cardboard. As a mechanical barrier, the two to three layers of cardboard prevents weeds better than a single one. I am still putting down wood chips every year but it is more like topping up than replacing.
I like that 80's pbs music too! You go girl!
I've been using this method for about 3 years now and it is marvelous. Anything that I have shipped to me in plain cardboard boxes I break those cardboard boxes down peel all the tape off and store them for future use.